Politicians looking to move from state and federal government to the local level: Opinion

Remember the old days, when politicians tended to move from a local office to the state Legislature and then, in some cases, on to Congress? That paradigm has largely been set on its ear.

Oh, most of our representatives still start out on the local level, usually winning a seat on a city council, school board or water board to kick off their political careers. But the directional arrows from there on, toward the state and federal levels, sometimes point backwards.

Witness the upcoming opening on the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors, revealed Monday when Supervisor Gary Ovitt announced he would retire from his 4th District seat when his second term concludes at the end of the year.

State Assemblyman Curt Hagman, R-Chino Hills, was first to make it official that he would seek the seat that represents Chino, Chino Hills, Montclair, Ontario and part of Upland. The other high-profile contestant, apparently, is Congresswoman Gloria Negrete McLeod, D-Montclair, who has raised more than $900,000 in her Gloria Negrete McLeod Supervisor 2014 campaign account.

Hagman terms out in the Assembly this year, and the Senate seat that he might like to fill is firmly held through 2016 by Senate Republican Leader Bob Huff. So term limits might have something to do with the desire of Hagman, a former councilman and mayor of Chino Hills, to become a county supervisor.

Or it could be the desire to be a bigger fish in a smaller pond, especially since the GOP, for which Hagman serves as assistant floor leader in the Assembly, has been largely marginalized in Sacramento.

The same is likely true for McLeod, the former state senator who won a seat in Congress in 2012 but now, apparently, wants to return to local office on the county level. Being a freshman Democrat in the Republican-controlled House also qualifies as a small-fish-in-a-big-pond position, compared to possibly being one of five people directing San Bernardino County.

Then there’s the lack of commuting and better pay for a county supervisor than an Assembly member gets. (Coming from Congress, McLeod would take a bit of a pay cut.) Throw in the effect of term limits, and you see why the 15-member Los Angeles City Council includes seven former state legislators.